Thursday, April 12, 2012

"Shitty First Drafts" Response

"Shitty First Drafts" is an essay written by Anne Lammot, a food review writer. This essay is about exactly what its name would suggest, bad first drafts. Lammot begins by comforting the reader, letting them know that it's okay to write a shitty first draft. In fact she goes on to say that it's essential to writing a successful paper, and that most professional writers start with a shitty first draft. Lammot explains the process of turning a first draft into a final paper. The first draft should be somewhat of an idea jumble. Then you read over your first draft, and can decide what's worth keeping and what isn't necessary.

Through Anne Lammot's process of writing a shitty first draft one gains ideas they otherwise wouldn't have. Writing a bad first draft also helps clean your paper up, by allowing the writer to decide first hand what they need in their paper and what can be cut. This essay appealed to me personally. Being the procrastinator I am, I often wait until the night before a paper is due and write just one first and final draft. Lammot has helped me realize exactly how destructive this procrastinating can be to my papers. For now on I plan to work ahead of the deadline so I can write a shitty first draft, then have time to build a final draft from that.

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